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Bill Cosby - Love and Marriage (TXT)
Bill Cosby - Love and Marriage (TXT)
BILL COSBY
BANTAM BOOKS NEW
YORK-TORONTO-LONDON SYDNEY-AUCKLAND
ISBN 0-553-28467-3
Published simultaneously in the United
States and Canada
Bantam Books are published b ks a
rlivision of attain
p y Bantam Boo,
Doubir ray Dell Pub/isking Group, Iliac. IS
trademark, consisting of tier,
worsts m Books" and the portrayal of a
rooster, is Rr.'gistered in
US. Patent and 7kademark of/ice and in
other county" Marca
R~Trata. Bantam Books, o66 Ffth Avenue,
New York, New York 10103.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
OPM 0 9 8 7654321
For Camille
forever
++++++++++~+++~++++++++
+~+++++++~+~++
My warm thanks to Ralph Schoenstein,
whose wonderful
voice has joined mine in this book as it did
in Fatherhood and Tim,e Flies.
++++++++~++++++~+++~++~
++++++~4~+~4.
CONTENTS
Introduction
BY ALVIN F. POUSSAINT, M.D. 1
Preface
JANE RUSSELL WAS NO PG13
13
PART I LOVE
PRESCRIPTION FROM DR.
KINSEY 23
AS THE BOTTLE SPINS
37
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10
YOUR BELOVED FOE 177
11
TO LOVE. HONOR.AND DRIVE UP
THE
WAKE 199
12
TILE TALK DO YOU PART
217
13
LA DIFFERENCE
231
14
A WING AND A PRAYER
249
PROMISED LAND
15
- THE
261
+++++++++++~++++++++++++++4~+
+++++++++
- A~ I have been married for twenty-five
-years, but I am not an authority an marriage and
this is not a marital textbook. These are just some
Cliffs Notes, not from HeathelifF but Bill, just some
memories and reflections about how I wandered in
the sexual wilderness awhile and then found the best
thing that ever happened to me, Camille Hanks
Cosby.
And I am certainly not an authority on love because there are no authorities on love, just those
who 've had luck with it and those who haven't. In
finding Camitle, I drew to an inside straight, queen
high.
?
W_ A,
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LOVE & MARRIAGE
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+++d.+++++++++
++++++++++++++
Introduction
by Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.
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++++++++++++++
AM Bill Cosby begins this comic caper about
romance and matrimony with a description of
his erotic awakening in the inner city of
Philadelphia, where he grew up. The story has
a familiar ring; we have all floundered and lost
INTRODUCTION
When Cosby describes disagreements he and
Camille have had, we realize that even happy
marriages are subject to periods of stress that
can push a relationship to the breaking point.
In every marriage, the relationship and the
individuals change over time. Cosby alludes to
these changes when he says about marriage,
'~Yes, it's wonderful at the beginning when
your life together is a romantic high." Social
scientists report that most long-term
relationships undergo a series of predictable
stages: infatuation and idealization of the
partner; cooling down, disappointment, moving
toward a more realistic relationship; becoming
a parent and pursuing a career, often called the
stage of productivity; redefining the relationship
and its goals while raising children to maturity;
and finally, the empty nest or post-parenting
stage, called a period of reintegration of the
marriage. As in any general categorisation,
passage through these stages is variable and
may not conform exactly to the outlined
progression. The point is that marriage is a
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++~+++t
9
INrRODUCrlON
livingnot a staticprocess. Cosby on serves,
'~With all the irregular rhythms that pulse
between a husband and wife, the wonder is that
any couple can sustain the glow of romance."
As marriages pass through normal developmental stages, they sometimes hit snags that
may appear to be fatal. For instance, if, after a
year or two, the intensity of sexual passion
diminishes, it is not necessarily a cause for
alarm. The partners may be settling down to a
less infatuated but deeper and quieter period of
love. Then again, they may have to work a bit
harder at maintaining a good sex life. Showing
affection in other ways with hugs, kisses, and
overall attentivenessmay be more important
and sustaining at such a time. People who expect everlasting sexual ecstasy in marriage are
usually disillusioned and feel as if the love has
been lost. Breaking up the marriage at this stage
may indicate that the partners lack a mature
understanding of natural developments in
long-term relationships and marriage.
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++++++++++++
10
INrRODUCTlON
Another important transition, often a cause
of marital stress, is the birth of a child. Cosby
discusses at length the effect of his children on
his marriage. New parents may resent the
constraints on their freedom to have fun or to
pursue careers. The routines of daily living
change dramatically; even the privacy for sexual
intimacy, once taken for granted, is disturbed.
Children bring taxing new demands and
responsibilities to even the best-adjusted
parents. We know that raising a family can
affect us in mysterious ways, altering our
personalities as well as our philosophy of life.
Our values may change as we face the awesome
responsibility of guiding children through a difficult and changing world. Although the
addition of a child heralds a marital adjustment,
it is also an occasion of great joy.
Cosby, on his television show as in real life,
has five children, and it is obvious that they
have brought delight to both his makebelieve
and real marriages. The shared love for
children, even in times of trial, has perhaps no
equal in the emotional realm of
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11
IN OR OD UC rlON
bonding and intimacy; it can deeply enrich a
relationship. Shared intimate experiences in
many areas is what adds "that extra something"
to the routine of marriage; a different quality of
closeness evolves as couples share life's many
ups and downs.
A word of warning, however: closeness thrives
best in an atmosphere in which the partners
accord mutual respect and accept individual
differences. Frequent confrontations, leading to
bitter stalemates or the holding of grudges, can
destroy the communication and intimacy that
are critical to any lasting partnership. Cosby
suggests that because partners owe it to
themselves to guard against such tendencies,
they should practice compromising and
negotiating conflict: 'I realized how important it
is for each partner in a marriage to make
adjustments. One of mine is agreeing to live in
a minimum security prison."
Cosby's down-to-earth views on love and
matrimony will make every reader laugh and
reminisce.
+++t+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
12
Preface
ANE RUSSELL
WAS NO PG-13
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+++++++++++++
~` I was born in 1937, when the mission of a
man was to slay the beast and plow the field, a
considerable challenge in North Philadelphia;
and when the mission of a woman was to cook
a man's food, wash his clothes, and be a
contented bystander in bed. How medieval that
America now seems, an America where a boy
named Bill Cosby played all day with his
muscles in high, his brain in low, and his glands
in neutral. In my preteen years in postwar
America, girls to me were merely a minor
bother, like a lost skate key or a mosquito bite.
Unlike a boy of ten today, who primps for a
dance while being transported by the poetry
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15
BILL COSBY
of a ballad called "I Want Your Sex," I never
thought about bowling over girls just about
knocking them down if they were near the
playing field. And a darkened living room, of
course, was never one of my fields.
I tell you all this at the start of the book so
that you will have a historical fix on the man
you are hearing from, a man who did not learn
the truth about human reproduction until the
late forties; and when I finally got this comical
information, it was from the University of the
Gutter and not from my grade school hygiene
class, where even the Pope would have been
bored. I remember a day when I was ten or
eleven and an older boy said with a casual
smirk, "You know why my sister got thrown out
of sewing classy'
"Because she needled the teachers' I replied.
"No, because she couldn't mendstrate."
The fake flew right by me, for it seemed to
me that mending was only one part of sewing.
Even if his sister couldn't mend
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4~++++++++++~+
16
32
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
awaken in a sticky situation and feel a profound
desire to help your mother with the laundry by
washing your sheets at once. What a challenge
this laundering can be for the boy who has just
awakened from an overnight arrival at puberty.
I remember the morning I came downstairs
all dressed for school at six-thirty, carrying my
pajamas and sheets. I should have been carrying
my mattress too because the manhood had gone
through to it, but I'd decided to have an
accidental fire in the mattress later on. A;s I
reached the foot of the stairs, I ran into my
father, who graciously played along with my
domestic nobility.
"Doing some laundry, Billy' he said.
"Yes, Dad," I replied. "Mom has such a heavy
load."
"What a good boy! What a wonderful son!
How many sons help their mothers with the
laundry even before they sit down to breakfastr'
The answer, of course, was every son who
awakened as a sperm bank.
In those ancient days, my family had a
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33
BILL COSBY
big washing machine with an agitator action
(that never could have become as agitated as I
was), a clanking contraption that you pushed up
to the kitchen sink. Doing undercover washing
in this machine was about as easy as doing
undercover hand grenade testing in the hall;
and so, I took my embarrassing laundry down to
the basement sink, where I added last night's
underwear for camouflage.
In this sink, I quickly went to work with a bar
of soap to remove the telltale stains of maturity.
There was, however, a small flaw in my plan:
we had no drier in that basement, so my sheets
and pajamas ended up not only clean but also
wet. Figuring that they had the entire day to
dry, and hoping for a warm desert wind to start
blowing through the house, I took them back
upstairs to my room.
39
BILL COSBY
women had said I looked like a girl; but now I
was grooming them with a toothbrush and
wondering if girls would prefer them from the
front or the side.
"Have you seen Bill blinks' I could hear a
pretty girl say.
"Oh, yes," her unattractive friend would reply.
"That blinking Bill drives me wild."
"Do you prefer his lashes from the front or
the sided'
'They're hairy enchantment from any direction."
My escalating grooming went far beyond just
polishing my lashes or changing my clothes two
or three times a week. The first thing every
morning, instead of taking to the streets to play
ball, I took a bath; and, as I soaked, I thought
about the way that I'd be playing ball from now
on: not to score for victory but to score with
girls. I had already begun to lose the
concentration needed for sporting success. Now,
when I left a huddle, I sometimes forgot the
play because I was thinking about a face on the
sidelines; and now, when I got a bunt sign, I
ignored it and
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40
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
thought long ball, for no girl ever fell for a
bunter; and now, when I dribbled to the top of
the key, even if I was being triple-teamed, I
never thought about passing off, for girls got no
tingles from your assists.
All those sporting moves were attempts to
win girls from afar. At parties, however, I had
c-trances to win girls by playing games with
them, games like Spin the Bottle, a name that
brings wistful smiles to people over thirty-five;
but it also brings bewilderment, for I am yet to
find anyone who remembers precisely how it
was played. Everyone remembers that the girls
and boys sat in a circle on the floor, one of
them spun the bottle, and then had to kiss the
person to whom the bottle was pointing. But
was it considered winning or losing if the bottle
pointed to someone you didn't like or someone
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+4~ ~
52
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
"Why not?"
There might have been reasons. Some people
were looking at us now because she was so
beautiful, people possibly wondering what she
was doing with me; but I knew that I was
someone special to be the love of a vision like
this, no matter how nearsighted that vision
might be.
When we reached her door, I said, 'Well, I'll
see you Saturday."
"Right," she replied as only she could say it.
'What time?"
"One o'clock."
When this day of days finally arrived, I took
her to a theater where I think the admission
was a dime. As we took our seats for the
matinee, two basic thoughts were in my mind:
not to sit in gum and to be a gentleman.
Therefore, I didn't hold her hand. Instead, I
put my arm around the top of her seat in what
I felt was a smooth opening move. Unfortunately, it was less a move toward love than
toward gangrene: with my blood mov
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53
BILL COSBY
ing uphill, my arm first began to tingle and then
to ache. I could not, however, take the arm
down and let my blood keep flowing because
such a lowering would mean I didn't love her;
so I left it up there, its muscles full of pain, its
fingertips full of needlepoints.
Suddenly, this romantic agony was enriched
by a less romantic one: I had to go to the
bathroom. Needless to say, I couldn't let her
know about this urge, for great lovers never did
such things. The answer to "Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore art thou, Romeo?" was not "In the
men's room, Julie."
What a prince of passion I was at this mo-
59
BILL COSBY
'Lou mean to tell me if a chick offers you
some j-o-n-e-s, you ain't gonna take none?"
"Well . . . I mean . . . if somebody wants to
give me some j-o-n-e-s . . ."
So I was saying that I would welcome donations; but the truth was I knew as much about
j-o-n-e-s as I knew about p-l-u-t~ n-i-u-m. My
neighborhood had signs on sidewalks and walls
that said with simple eloquence JONES IS
GOOD; but most of the boys who penned this
Iyrical thought were just sharing a rumor. I had
never pondered it much because, in a foolish
upside-down way, I had always been interested
only in a girl's face. A few weeks before, when
a girl had passed by, Pee Wee had told me, 'I'd
love to see her legs way up in the air."
"You wanna see her parachute from
somethingY' I had replied.
And now Pee Wee again was discussing aerial
maneuvers, this time by Rosemary.
"Rosemary wanna give you some j-o-n-e-s," he
said.
"Naturally," I said, "but I'm not gonna take
it."
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LOVE AND MARRIAGE
"You're not? How come?"
"'Cause I'm gonna marry her and I want her
to be a virgin."
"Well, Rosemary ain't nobody's virgin. Everybody got some of that j-o-n-e-s. Even Weird
Harold got some underneath the Ninth Street
bridge."
In anguished disbelief, I threw down the ball
and ran to Rosemary's house. Because of my
pain, my first question to her perhaps was less
diplomatic than it could have been.
'Lou givin' everybody some j-o-n-e-s?"
"U{haR" she replied.
ignorant friend:
"We did it the regular way."
++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++
67
OMEBODY MOP THAT CHAPEL
++~++++++++++~++~4~++++
~+++~+++4~+++++
~` Alas, Rosemary and I did not last. In spite
of all we had in commonour both living in
North Philadelphia, our both knowing Weird
Harold, our both being students of
j-o-n-e-swe soon drifted apart and I decided
to find another wife. I was thirteen years old
and back in the singles' scene.
Because that singles' scene was a lower
economic one, parties were held not in restaurants or hotels but in somebody's house. We
moved the furniture back, replaced the bright
white light bulb with a soft red one, and put on
records that were hard black 78s. As breakable
as my heart, these records lasted less than
three minutes; and so, less
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BILL COSBY
than three minutes was all you had to conquer
the girl in your arms with a kind of pre-rock
and roll dancing that I call rock and rub. You
enveloped the girl, hoping that she would fit
neatly into the contours of your body, and then
you slowly rocked her as if you were putting a
baby to sleep, while you suffered the awful
suspense of wondering if she was going to press
you back before she saw that you were sweating
and left you for Weird Harold's cousin, Goofy
Rufus.
It was a trip to the moon if the girl gave you
both a little pelvis and a little knee (no other
parts were required) in what was called The
Grind. The problem, however, in my inspiring a
girl to do The Grind was that a 78 was over too
soon for me to make all my moves. What I
needed was The Nutcracker Suite on 33~/3.
With some of those girls, it seemed that I would
have to rock around the clock before I got a
knee jerk going.
Every time I think of those parties, one
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74
L O VE A ND MA R R /A CE
elated to find that this was the first time I had
ever danced with a girl who didn't seem as
though she wanted to relocate. Moreover, there
was a wondrous sweetness in the heat that came
to me from Ruth's body. I sometimes had slept
with my brother and this was definitely better.
In dancing with Ruth, I did not pull her right
into me: I just made sure she knew in what
direction I would be going, and often I knew it
too. Every time she moved one of her feet,
there was a good chance that the other would
follow; we had that kind of style. Although our
bodies were about four inches apart, we still felt
the heat across the divide. There was only one
flaw in the rapture we knew: we couldn't look
at each other. While we danced, Ruth kept
looking all over the room, as if following birds,
and I did some bird-watching too. But perhaps
eye contact would have broken the spell.
When the song was over, I finally looked at
Ruth and thanked her; and then I reluctantly
retreated to the boys and began to look around
for another vacant girl. Mo
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is
BILL COSBY
meets later, the search was over, for Millie
came by.
I was delighted to discover that she didn't
believe in gaps. In fact, when I put my arm
around her waist, she sweetly responded by
straddling my right thigh with both of her legs,
and then she began to press me with her bosom
too. Here was a girl who knew how to press a
hundred and twenty pounds: as we danced in
slow circles, with the music low and my
temperature rising, she made herself a part of
my chest, my legs, and my face.
For almost three minutes, my fever climbed;
and then the record ended, Millie released me
to recover, and I returned to the punch bowl.
There I waited out two fast songs, impatiently
wondering if I would ever be able to go to press
again. At last, a slow song came on, but both
Ruth and Millie were taken, so I had to settle
a sponge.
Even worse than the sweat was the sound that
our faces made whenever they pulled apart: it
sounded like the removal of surgical tape. As I
tried to sustain some feeling of romance, I was
torn by two urges, both unacceptable: to wipe
my own sweat and to wipe Millie's. And yet it
seemed to me that if you truly loved this girl in
your arms, you'd remove your hand and take a
few seconds to dry her off, either with a
handkerchief or your sleeve. Was there a way to
get dry to music without breaking the spell?
And was there a way to keep yourself from
starting to sweat again? Did Fred and Ginger
ever go to a rosin bag?
And so, I entered the teenage years flitting
from girl to girl and dampening them as I
wondered which of them would be my True
Love. It was only on the dance floor that I
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LOVE AND MARRIAGE
ever got a female in both my arms (in the
movies, I used just one and it quickly died), so
I worked as hard on my dancing as I did on my
driving to the hoop because I didn't want my
dancing to look like my driving to the hoop.
My teacher was an older boy named Johnny
Berg, who didn't know the capital of the
United States but knew the two major fast
dances. Anyone, even Weird Harold, could do
a slow dance: you just leaned on the girl and
moved as if you were leaving a crowded bus;
but you needed either Astaire or Johnny to
teach you the Bop and the Strand.
In the Bop, you circled your stationary
partner, trying to stay in orbit and not float off
into space like a loose comet; and in the
Strand, you strolled across the floor with your
partner in your arms and then suddenly flung
her away from you, took a few steps, and met
her again, as if she were a well-thrown yo-yo. If
properly done, the Strand was charming. If
improperly done, it looked as if you had
disposed of the girl as if she were a frilly
banana peel.
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81
BILL COSBY
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82
iN TRAINING
FOR VAGRANCY
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~` For a boy entering puberty, love can involve
different combinations of the head, the heart,
and the glands. The head and the glands,
however, were inactive when I fell in love with
Sarah McKinney because she had certain
qualities that made her unique as one of my
flames: she was twenty-five years old, she was
married, and she was my teacher. The tall
skinny boy named Bill Cosby with a zit on his
face and zip in his pockets had as much chance
of winning Sarah McKinney as he had of winning Sarah Vaughan.
But what a vision she was as she kept trying
to put something into my head: a dark
+++}+~+++~4. ~ +++4~++} ~
++ ~ ~ +~4~++4~+
as
BILL COSBY
chocolate woman with high cheekbones, large
lovely eyes, and ebony hair that was parted in
the middle. And how my heart turned over
when she said, "The capital of Finland is
Helsinki." I wanted to carry her off to Helsinki,
or at least to Harrisburg.
My feeling for this woman had a purity from
Camelot. In my fantasies about her, I never
dreamed of taking her to bed or having her
throw me down and do something from the
Kinsey Report: I simply dreamed of saying to
her, Mrs. McKinney, you are the most beautiful
BILL COSBY
"Oh, yeah? You need a woman to get it, you
know."
"You think I don't know that?"
"Well, I got it," he said, "and it was great."
"Soon as I have a free minute, I'm gonna get
it too," I said. "I may very well be in the mood
this week."
"Are you kiddie', Cosby? You don't even
know what it looks like."
"Man, now you've gone too far! You want me
to tell you what it looks like?"
"How do I know you won't be describin' your
mother?"
"'Cause a mother is different."
"Now I know you don't know nothin'. They're
all exactly the same."
"And that's why all I'm gonna have to find is
one," I said.
The quality of the jive on that corner reached
the level of the United Nations, for our
imaginations had to fill endless stretches of time
in which our lives had all the drama of a
crossing guard's. As we waited there night after
night, we knew that the girls simply had to
appear. We had never
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92
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
known where they went in the daytime while we
were playing six hours of basketball; and so, if
they were in some kind of hibernation by day, it
was logical to think they'd come out at night,
like the Dracula some of them resembled. And
eventually, they did: to go to the drugstore for
their mothers to get a prescription, a hairnet, or
a picture of Mickey Rooney's latest wife.
Standing there between that drugstore and
the bus stop for hours every night, we seven or
eight young men were classic American
dreamers. Being bonded to other lustful liars
gave us the confidence that each of us lacked
alone, no matter how many times we claimed to
have gotten it. The poignant truth was that most
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96
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
around anyplace else? You gotta meet buses?"
"I go to an all-boys' school and it's got no
girls for me to carry their books. I always
thought I could get a girl from the way I play
basketball, but they never watch me play
because they never come out in the daytime.
Dad, do you know where girls go in the
daytimes'
He frowned and was silent for a few sec~onds.
"Maybe they leave Philadelphia," he said.
"That's why I'm watching the buses."
Night after night, year after year, I looked for
a girl with whom I could go steady. From time
to time, on a Friday or Saturday night, I left bus
inspecting to look for her at a party, which was
usually held in somebody's basement. In one
corner of the room, there was always a
phonograph; and in the center of the room,
there was a punch bowl, peanuts, and pink and
white mints that tasted like something that
should have been unclogging a drain. The air
was so full of cigarette smoke that after a while
the host
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97
BILL COSBY
ess's parents went outside so they could continue breathing, leaving us young lovers to
grope for each other with watery eyes to the
strains of "Crying in the Chapel."
It was in those basements that I tried to
squeeze girls as if they were melons to see
which ones might be ripe for going steady with
me. Sometimes I managed to lure one of them
outside to sit with me in a car for a little kissing
and rubbing; most of the other girls I managed
to lure away from the crowd just sat there like
statues, hoping that this moment would pass
and they could get on with their lives.
For these statuesque girls, every boy knew
precisely the physical therapy that was needed,
the quintessential behavior modifier.
99
BILL COSBY
to my Grapefruit League.
"Forget her," said my friend Roy after I
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125
BILL COSBY
had dreamed aloud to him. "That girl is a stiff."
"Probably because nobody has ever approached her the right way," I said.
"The right way is with an oil can. I tell you,
Bill, the girl's a stiff.
"Look, I'm majoring in physical education, so
I happen to know what to do when somebody's
stiff."
'Lou gonna tell her to take a few laps?"
"I'm also studying psychology. I understand
the human mind."
"The human mind, okay, but what about
women?"
In spite of Roy's doubts, I accepted the
challenge of this intimidating beauty and I
introduced myself.
"Hi, there," I said, intercepting her at the
library. "I'm Bill Cosby. I've seen you around
the campus 'cause I'm on it a lot 'cause I go
here too."
Another smooth opening by the most romantic tongue since Cyrano.
"Hello, I'm Denise Carter."
'~hat's your major?" I said, falling back
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126
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
on the stalest campus question of all. The zenith
of my conversation seemed to have been my
name.
"English," she replied.
"Mine's phys ed, but I know a lot of English
too. You like music?"
my kind of music."
"But . . . how can that be?" I wondered if she
had some kind of rare ear disease.
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++++++++++
128
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
'fiery simply. Liking this music is a matter of
taste."
'iYes, I agree. If you have taste, you like it."
She replied just by rolling her eyes and I fell
silent too, for I was stunned. How could I marry
a girl who didn't dig John Coltrane? I would
come home from a hard day of whatever I was
doing with phys ed, put on a Coltrane record,
and she would say, "Can't you put on some
Wagner?"
And I would say, "I'm fresh out of Wagner.
How about some Bud Powell?"
"There are no musicians named Bud," she'd
reply.
At the end of Coltrane's performance, I
drove Denise home in a car I had borrowed for
what should have been a magnificent evening.
"I'm afraid that your Mr. Coltrane has
problems within himself," she said as we rode.
"You better explain that," I said' hoping she
wouldn't.
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++++++++++
129
BILL COSBY
'Well, he's punishing his audience by playing
out his anger."
"Denise, you're the only one who felt punished."
"No, he's a very angry man and that isn't
good."
"Look, don't you have angry men in classical
music?" I said, and then I reached for the only
classical reference I knew: "I hear Beethoven
was in a rotten mood for thirty years."
8
SALVATION
CALLED CAMILLE
+~. I+~! t+~e +
~` Not long after my memorable evening of
talking in a foreign tongue to Denise, I
revealed a flair for insecurity by dropping out
of Temple to become a standup comedian. I
began to perform at little nightclubs all along
the East Coast, trying to be as funny as women
had found me when I pursued them. The day
I reached Washing ton, a friend named George
Green asked me if I wanted to go out with a
beautiful nineteen-year-old student from the
University of Maryland named Camille Hanks,
whose family lived in the fashionable suburb of
Silver Springs.
"She's a stunner, Bill," said George.
++++++++++4.~+4~++4~++++++++
++++++++++++
139
BILL COSBY
"And that just happens to be the woman I'm
looking for," I said. "Tell her my own
stunningness can't be seen by the naked eye, but
it's there. Tell her I'm a great dancer, I have a
great outside shot, and I'm never going to be a
teacher."
"Her father is a research chemist."
"Tell her that's always been my hobby: researching chemistry. A really good-looking
woman, eh?"
"More than good-looking, Bill; she has class.
Come to think of it, I wonder why she'd want to
go out with you."
He had wondered correctly: Camille Hanks
considered the idea and decided that I should
start the date without her. On her list of ideal
men, a struggling comic did not appear. He was
on a different list, one that included parolees,
lion tamers, and freelance chimney sweeps.
A few days later, however, George asked me
if I wanted to come to a bowling class that he
attended with Camille; and I accepted, for I saw
a chance to win her in person and make her
forget that she would
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140
LOVE AND J`ARRIACE
never be able to tell our children what their
father did for a living.
That evening at the bowling class, where
Camille didn't know my name for a while, I
improvised some comedy bits, inspired by the
class having more people than most of the clubs
where I worked. When I was finally introduced
to her, she realised that she had already been
enjoying mebut not nearly so much as I had
been enjoying just the sight of her. In that
Washington bowling alley, love at first sight
became more than just another cliche for me;
and I suddenly knew that, no matter how hard
I had pursued those other girls, I had never
been in love, just in like or in lust.
'Would you like to go out one night and hear
some music with men' I said to Camille.
'~Yes, that would be nice," she replied. "Do
you have any particular concert in minds'
"Well, the New York Philharmonic doesn't
seem to be in town, which is a bad break, so
how about John Coltrane~'
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+~++~+++
141
BILL COSBY
He had followed me to Washington, daring
me to bring him another woman.
"John Coltrane?" said Camille, looking as if
I'd just mentioned a leader of the IRA.
Why, I wondered, did I always tie my heart to
a saxophone? I saw myself at sixtyfive,
wandering through bus terminals and asking
women in shawls, "Wanna come hear some
Coltrane, honey?"
The following night, Camille went out with
me and spent three hours trying to fly with John
Coltrane. The Cosby College of Cool had a
willing student at last, and one whose beauty
matched the sounds that had me spellbound.
The big question now was: Could a woman be
laughed into love? I thought about the great
lovers of history: Romeo, Casanova, Napoleon,
and Loose Leroy Simms. They were pretty
serious cats and they did better with women
than Oliver Hardy and Fibber McGee. I
bridge.
Yes, let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in
charge. Or, to put it another way, the husband
is not. Now I can hear your voices crying out:
Teat patronising nonsense.
What a dumb generalisation.
+++4~++++++4~+++++++++4~+++4
~+++++~+~++++
158
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
What a great jacket for the Salvation Army.
Well, my proof of the point is a simple one.
If any man truly believes that he is the boss of
his house, then let him do this: pick up the
phone, call a wallpaper store, order new
wallpaper for one of the rooms in his house,
and then put it on. He would have a longer life
expectancy sprinkling arsenic on his eggs. Any
husband who buys wallpaper, drapes, or even a
prayer rug on his own is auditioning for the
Bureau of Missing Persons.
Therefore, in spite of what Thomas Jefferson
wrote, all men may be created equal, but not to
all women, and the loveliest love affair must
bear the strain of this inequality once the
ceremony is over. When a husband and wife
settle down together, there is a natural struggle
for power (I wonder why he bothers:); and in
this struggle, the husband cannot avoid giving
up a few thingsfor example, dinner.
To be fair, I must admit that Camille did
+~++++++++~+~+++~++++~++4~
+++~4~+++~++
159
BILL COSBY
wait a few years before allowing me to make
this particular sacrifice. I had just sat down at
the table one night with her and our three
children when I happened to notice that my
plate contained only collard greens and brown
rice.
'mould you please donate this to the Hare
Krishna and bring me my real meal," I said to
the gentleman serving the food.
"You have it all," he replied.
161
BILL COSBY
species and communication between them is a
science still in its infancy.
For example, one of my many charming
idiosyncrasies is that I rarely put my shoes in
my closet. I don't put them in the freezer or the
microwave: I merely leave them on the floor
wherever I happen to take them off. Camille,
however, like most women, cannot understand
my carpet collection. "Bill, I really wish you'd stop leaving your
shoes all over the floor," she said one afternoon
early in our marriage.
"You planning to clean the rugs?" I replied.
"No, it's because I trip over them."
'well, let me ask you this."
"Please don't."
"Do you ever trip over the coffee table?"
"No, but"
"And you never trip on the dog or the children. But you trip on my shoes."
'well, first of all, I always know where the
coffee table is."
"And the dog files a flight plan with you?
.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++
162
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
The children show up on your radar? Dear, you
don't have to be Edwin Moses to go over a pair
of shoes."
'`Bill, I need the other Moses to part all the
shoes you leave lying around. When we got
married, you didn't tell me that you don't
believe in closets."
Camille and I had this philosophical dialogue
many times, but I never changed the habit
because changing a habit violates the entire
tradition of marriage. And then one day, I took
off my shoes in the living room, went to the
kitchen to make some coffee, and returned to
171
BILL COSBY
"Oh, yes," she would reply. 'there's no such
word as 'discomfort' when I'm all wrapped up
by you."
But fifteen years later, my wrap party got a
different review.
"Hey, octopus," she now would say, "are you
comfortable?"
"I'm in heaven," I would reply.
"Well, I'm in a much lower region. But that's
okay. I'll just lie here and work on my soul
because suffering is supposed to be good for it."
She is, however, selective about the suffering
I inspire in her: some of it does not seem soul
stirring enough to take.
'~here are you going?" I say to her as she
gets up from a dinner table and starts to leave
people I'm entertaining.
"To anyplace," she softly says, "where I won't
have to hear this story for the ninetyseventh
time."
This moment reveals the ultimate challenge
for a woman in marriage: to accept it for the
rerun it is but keep herself from canceling the
show.
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++++++++++
172
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Camille, unfortunately, isn't equal to the
challenge: she requires fresh entertainment; she
wants to be seeing things for the first time; and
baseball is one such thing. She has seen parts of
hundreds of games, each time with the
understanding of someone who just stepped off
a flight from Mars.
For example, one evening, I was sitting in my
living room and watching the playoffs between
the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York
Mets.
"Keep that on," said Camille, entering the
room.
"You don't want the Home Shopping Net-
work?" I said.
"No, this is what I like: the World Series."
"It's the playoffs."
"Same thing."
"That's what I was about to say."
"This is when it means something," she said.
"You know all those other games they play?"
"You mean the season?"
+++++~++~+~+~+4~+++++++++++
+~+++++++++
173
BILL COSBY
"Right. Well, I don't know why they play
them."
"Just something to do to warm up for the
playoffs, I guess."
"Well, I just can't get involved in them because they don't mean anything."
"Yes, I frankly don't see how the players
manage to pay attention either."
Moments later, Mookie Wilson hit
meaningful grounder to deep short,
first, and beat the throw. Then he
running, turned, and walked slowly
bag.
a
sprinted to
stopped
back to the
++++cF+~++++
174
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
are little boys, so I understand. You're just
trying to reli ye your boyhood fantasies."
"No, my boyhood fantasy wasn't to play in
the major leagues. My boyhood fantasy was to
marry a woman who knew you can overrun
first base."
~+++~+~4.~++++~+4~4.~+++++++
~4~+~++++
175
to
YOUR BELOVED FOE
~ ++ ~ +++++ ~ +++~+ ~
++++++++4. ~ +++4~+ ~ + ~
++.h
~` "I was married once," says a man in The
Importance of Being Earnest. "It was the result
of a misunderstanding between myself and a
young woman."
Misunderstanding does unfortunately lie at
the heart of marriage, for no matter how
deeply a man and woman love each other, they
are often like two UN delegates whose
headphones have jammed. They are constantly
finding common ground that turns out to be
quicksand.
A few years ago, Camille would happily have
gone into quicksand rather than into the sauna
I had built for our house in Los Angeles.
+++4~++~+++~++++++~+++++~++
++++~4~+++++
179
BILL COSBY
"That steam room," she said right after it had
been completed. "Are you planning to do your
own dry cleaning?"
"It'll be dry cleaning us," I replied. "It's for
you and me."
"Honey, I can't take that much heat."
"It'll be a complete rebirth for you."
"Have I complained about the first one? Bill,
those saunas go up to a hundred and twenty
degrees."
++++++++++~++~+++++4~+++++~
+++++++++++
182
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
last May seventeenth at church. Our relationship would be stronger if you kept better
score."
"And you always correct me like that."
"No, again not always: just the few thousand
times when you're wrong."
"But I'm not wrong. I remember precisely
what you've said to me."
"No, you remember imprecisely what I've said
to you. Or else precisely what some other
husband. has said."
'Lou never listen to me."
"You're nothing-for-three today. The truth is,
I probably listen too much. I should be more
selective."
"You know what I've decided?"
"What?"
"That you're the most irritating man in the
world."
'you've got to watch those generalizations.
The most irritating man in the world is Mr.
Botha."
"Who's Prince Charming compared to vow
Oh, how I wish I had tapes of our con
+. .~4~+~+~4~4~++'
.~+~+4~4~+~. 64~54~+
183
BILL COSBY
versations to prove to you what you really said."
"Your half belongs on 'The Twilight Zone.'
Which is where I think I'm living sometimes.
Just tell me this: Did you happen to move my
collection of hand grenades from my table in
the deny'
"Yes, I d-id."
"And do you happen to remember where you
put themY'
"The same way I remember everything you
say. I put them in the attic."
"You doing some decorating up thereY'
"Down here they were in the way."
"In the way of what? A plate of Swedish
meatballs? A picture of Wilt Chamberlain?
Those hand grenades were souvenirs and they
were mine. You just can't keep on hiding my
things. I walk around this house looking for my
things like somebody who's lost his mind."
"Yes, that is your best imitation."
This kind of heartfelt give-and-take is what
the matrimonial sages say will bring you two
closer together. And often it does:
++++++++++++~+++~++++++~+++
+++++4~++~+
184
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
often the combat leads to a peace conference
that is sexually delicious. In building to this
at the wheel.
++~++~++~4~4~++ ~ + ~
+4~4~++ ~ +4~++4~+ ~ ~ 4~+
186
L O VE A ND MA R R I A GE
"Look out for that armored column!" she says.
"You think I don't see it?" you reply.
"I'm never sure what you see."
"I'm starting to see bachelorhood in a whole
new light."
Moreover, your automotive rapport suffers
the same decline during the years that the two
of you keep trying to navigate toward unknown
destinations. Early in the marriage, it is gaily
romantic for the two of you to get lost together,
just as it was a merry moment when Columbus
told his first mate, "India, Youngstown, who
cares as long as we're having fun!"
"Darling," your young wife says, "please
understand the spirit in which I say this: I think
Chicago was a left at that fork."
"I took a shot," you reply, "just as I did when
I married you. Maybe I'll luck out again."
And she laughs and puts her befuddled head
against your uncertain steering arm and says,
"Getting there with you is half the fun, even if
we're going nowhere."
+++++++++++++++++++++~+~+++
+4~++++4~+++
187
BILL COSBY
However, later in the marriage, getting lost is
less enchanting.
"You missed the turn, Magellan," she says.
"Chicago was a left at that fork. Or are you
trying to get there by way of Montreal?"
"No, it was a right at the fork," you reply, "but
thanks anyway for the misinformation. Why
don't you just concentrate on holding the
change for the tolls?"
"Why don't you concentrate on changing from
someone who always yells at me?"
"I don't always yell at you. You call just
I'm saying.
THE WIFE: Do you think that you 11 ever
be saying your point? Or would you rather get
a pencil and paper and try drawing it?
Camille and I once accidentally switched
these-two lines because we'd forgotten our parts
during a long spell of peace, but I found that I
didn't have my heart in asking her what was her
point, and she seemed to
+++~+~++++++~+++++++++~+++
++++~+++++
191
BILL COSBY
lack a flair for telling me what she was saying.
She seemed uncomfortable trying to clarify a
thought that she probably wanted to keep
obscure.
Reading the wrong dialogue is bad enough,
but going blank is even worse. The argument I
dislike most is the one in which Camille just
suddenly walks away from me and I forget my
next line. When she returns, I can either vamp
until I remember what I was talking about or I
can start a new fight about her halftime break.
"That was really lovely to just walk out that
way," I once told her.
"I thought I'd do some shopping while you
were trying to find your point," she said.
In my twenty-five years on the roller coaster
of marriage, I have discovered that marital
fights sometimes last for three or four days
because the opponents aren't playing the same
game: men and women fight differently. For
example, at certain times in a fight a woman
likes to respond by
+~4- ~ 4~4~+ ~ ~ +4~4~++ ~ +~4~ +4~4~+4~4~+~4~ 4 ~
192
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
sticking her fingers in her ears, but a man does
this only to catch mosquitoes.
"Now that's truly adult," you say. "Just tuning
out . . . Did you hear me? I said, 'That's truly
adult.'"
And then she starts to hum, but not even one
of your favorite tunes, just something that
~ ++ ~ ~ +++++ ~ + ~ 4. ~ +4.
203
BILL COSBY
"Doing what?" I replied with a scratch of my
head.
"Scratching the back of your head; it drives
me crazy."
"I'm sorry, dear. I didn't know you were
emotionally involved with my scratching."
"Is it rotten shampoo or are you trying to
show that you're thinking?"
In the following days, I did no head
scratching, but I missed this little workout, so I
intensified my other major indoor exercise:
jiggling my leg while I sat. In fact, I now was
jiggling my leg hard enough to make an
approach to the Richter scale.
One afternoon I was sitting and jiggling,
trying to move a coffee table farther from the
door, when Camille came flying at me like a
safety in a goal-line stand. With both hands, she
slammed down my leg and I wondered if there
would be a flag on the play.
"Stop that!" she cried. "It drives me crazy!"
"I have an idea," I said, massaging my leg.
++++++++4~+~++~++4~4~++ ~
+~+4~++++~4~+~+++
204
LOVE APID MARRIAGE
'Why don't we both make lists of the things the
other one does that drive us crazy."
"Make lists?" she asked.
'~es, and then we could see which ones we
could"
"That drives me crazy, you know."
'What?"
"Making lists of things that drive us crazy. It
takes all the romance out of marriage when you
give it a scorecard."
"Anyway, you know what's funny?" I said. "I
can't think of a single thing for my list."
208
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
dramatic device developed by Camille. I know
only that eighteen years ago, I lost a key; and
ever since then, she has handed down to the
children, like an Arthurian leg end: Your father
always loses his keys.
Because of this legend, I've been forbidden to
have a key to my house, for I am a man who
cannot keep one, a man who probably would
give it to the first needy person I saw on the
street. Therefore, if no one is home, the silence
in the house will not be broken by me because
I cannot get in. If an emergency happens to
arise, there is a person nearby with the keys to
my house who will let me in but who will not
give me the keys. In fact, on one occasion, I
found myself locked in the house because the
nearby person had let me in and then left with
the keys, a moment that made me think about
the deeper meaning of marriage. I realised how
important it is for each partner in a marriage to
make adjustments. One of mine is agreeing to
live in a minimum security prison.
Camille will never apologise for treating
+~+4~+d++++++~++~+~+~++++++
++++~+~++
209
BILL COSBY
me this way. Again, it is nothing personal; it is
simply the code of wives. They do not apologise,
probably because they've been spoiled by
homage paid by their athletic sons. Whenever a
television camera picks up a player on the
sidelines after he has done something splendid,
what does he say? Not Thanks, steroids or That
should cover the point spread or I'm certainly
earning my salary from the school. No, he says,
Hi Mom, even though Mom wishes football had
never been invented by Genghis Khan.
If I ever did find myself in a real minimum
security prison, visiting day would be shorter for
me than for the other inmates because Camille
would be half an hour late, her regular arrival
time. When she finally came, of course, she
would be a face worth waiting for; and when
she left, right after I'd kissed her and told her
how much I'd missed her, she would say, "Did
you lock up?"
Camille keeps marching to a different
drummer, one who missed the bus carrying
++++++++++++++++++++++++~++
+++++4~++++
210
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
the band. For example, each January she walks
into the living room, sees a playoff game on the
TV screen, and says, "Oh, is this starting again?"
Like so many American wives, even those who
hear Hi, Mom, she thinks that the football
season starts with the winter playoffs and then
builds to salary negotiations in the spring.
A lack of synchronisation, however, between
a husband and wife is something that ironically
can help a marriage. If they happen to be living
in two different time zones or two different
seasons, their feeling for each other can be
strengthened by their efforts to penetrate the
other zone. Whenever I know that Camille is
supposed to reach a certain place at a certain
time, I call that place forty minutes late to see
if she has made it. If she still isn't there, I wait
another three hours, and then I begin to worry
and to fantasise with a desperate heart:
Has she been kidnapped by gypsies or run away
with the circus or simply gone someplace where
nobody
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++
211
- BILL COSBY
scratches the back of his head? Will she come
home in time to buy my birthday present? Why
did l ever get angry at her for a silly little thing
like keeping me awake till three with her light
while she read magazines and scattered cracker
crumbs in the bed? I71 never get angry at her
again, no matter how many really stupid things
she does. I don't care if she wants to use the bed
to feed pigeons, and I don't care if she says I was
probably asleep all the time because I never know
when I am, and I don't care if she wants me to
audit a kindergarten class to learn how to lock
doors. She's the best thing that ever happened to
me and I want her back, even if she comes home
half an hour late.
With all the irregular rhythms that pulse
between a husband and wife, the wonder is
that any couple can sustain the glow of romance. "How do you keep the music play
+++~++++++++++++++++++++~++
++++++++++
212
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
in"?" asks the song, for so many marriages seem
to be a natural segue from a waltz to Taps.
The launching of a marriage is almost always
romantic, as in the way that Ahmad Rashad,
while broadcasting football, turned from Marcus
Allen to Phylicia with his own game plan. The
average man, of course, must do something
simpler, like take an ad in the personals column
saying: LUCRETIA,
WILE YOU MARRY ME? OFFER GOOD
UNTIL
MIDNIGHT FRIDAY. PHOTO ON REQUEST.
HENRY. But if things are so good between
Henry and Lucretia, why is she reading the
personals? And why is a man trying to understand the way of a woman? I should keep
remembering what a writer named Jennifer
Harlow Smith has said about the man she loves:
"Romance, I realised, lay in acknowledging the
mysterious distance between us. The sexes come
from different citadels. He thinks differently
than I. How wonderful."
Yes, wonderful at the beginning, when your
life together is a romantic high, when
+++++++++++++++++++++++~+++
++++++++++
213
BILL COSBY
the Iyrics of the love songs are true for you and
you hear yourself singing,
I didn't know what time it was, Then I met you.
A soulful thought. Camille, however, didn't
know what time it was when she was twelve, for
she is a woman who always seems to be wearing
not a watch but a sundial, and the correct time
made no particular impression on her when she
fell in love with me.
Nonetheless, she did feel the romantic high
that intoxicates most married couples and lasts
between a week and five years. Sometime after
the fifth year, however, or maybe the tenth . . .
I was sitting in my living room one eve ning in
my thirteenth year of marriage, listening to a
baritone sing,
++++++++++
227
BILL COSBY
"How you talk, lover," she demurely replied.
"And speaking of floating, this is a tough time
to be a whale, don't you think?"
She smiled helplessly, and then I said, "You
look so young and lovely tonight."
'you've said that already, but I don't mind. If
my loveliness is the bottom of your barrel, you
can go with it for a day or two."
The pressure was getting to me now. How
could parents keep themselves from talking
about their children? I decided that there
should be a clinic where addicts could taper off,
first looking at photos of their own children,
then gradually at someone else's, and finally at
slides of vasectomies.
Once our appetisers came, we began to chew
our way through a seemingly endless lull. I
thought about my oldest daughter often telling
me not to talk with a mouthful of food and I
congratulated myself on avoiding a demerit
from Camille by keeping the thought
unexpressed.
'Lou know, the Owls could go all the way this
year," I finally said.
+~ ~ ~ I+14~4~ ~ 14~4~ I~ I+~+
228
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
"Some new migration?" she replied.
"The Temple Owls. All the way."
"That would be nice. All the way where?"
As a bird-watcher, Camille was no better than
Denise. Was any woman wise enough to follow
my Owls?
After the meal a romantic mood was upon us,
so hand in hand we walked down to the beach
under a sky full of stars. We went almost to the
water's edge, and for four or five minutes
nothing was said; but neither of us was trying
now, for we both were transported by the
awesome beauty of the universe. At last,
however, from somewhere deep in my soul, a
thought emerged and was given voice.
strange father."
"A very strange father who cares. Dear, I just
wanted to help him say what's in his heart.
Please forgive me."
"I guess I do."
"And please don't tell Mom. In some states,
this would be grounds for divorce."
A little while later the telephone rang, she
answered it upstairs, and I held my breath.
When the conversation was over, she came
thumping down the stairs and leaped the last
two into the room, a huge smile on her face.
"That was Larry!" she said.
"And he wants to be more than a friend. See,
a father's wisdom comes through again. The boy
was just a little confused."
"Dad, he was more confused than a little.
That was the wrong Larry."
"You mean . . ."
+4~4- ~ ~ ~ 4~4- ~ ~ ~ ~ +4~ ~+ ~
I+ ~ i+ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
246
L O VE A N D MA R R I A C E
"You asked him his plans for me and I'm
afraid I don't fit in. He's going to be a priest."
I paused for a moment of introspection, and
then I said, "I'll be the one going to Peru. You
think Larry could send me off with a blessing?"
She laughed. "But you know, Dad, I've been
thinking. If my father feels I'm in a situation I
can't handle myself, then I must really be a
jerkette."
"A little jerk?" I said with a smile full of love.
"A big female one. So I've decided I'm going
to Larry"
"The lay Larry, you mean."
"Yes, and ask him some serious questions
about where we are."
"And also tell him you have some wonderful
genes on your mother's side. The side that has
the keys to the house."
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247
~ WING
AND A PRAYER
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+~++~+++++
~~` It was a small dinner party with two dear
friends to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary
and the talk had begun with such cosmic
concerns as why men always leave toilet seats
up.
"God knows how many women have
drowned," said Camille. "And right after they
worked so hard to take off all that weight."
"I married Dave because he doesn't leave the
toilet seat up," said Caroline. "It may be his
best quality."
"I wonder if the angle of the toilet seat is the
secret of a happy marriage," I said, "or if
there's more to it than that."
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251
BILL COSBY
"There may be one more thing," said Caroline's husband, Dave. "I once read in a
magazine that the way to keep a woman happily
married is to suddenly sneak up on her and kiss
the back of her neck."
'7've done that!" I said, smiling triumphantly
at Camille. "And here we are: twenty-five years.
Should I switch to biting now? Or is that just
for happy wives in Transylvania?"
"No," said Dave, "I think the article said you
should do the biting on her earor blow on it
or blow your nose before you sing to her; I
really can't remember now."
"You just never know when and where to
bite, blow, kiss, pat, or rub," I said. 'Women
should come with directions."
"Yes," said Camille, "and the first one should
be to avoid men who learn to make love from
Poputar Mechanics. "
"I think it was Gentlemen's Quarterly," said
Dave.
258
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
rules; you just have to wing it. A wing and a
prayer, that's what marriage is. I don't care
what Dear Abby says: Camille wouldn't mind
if I brought out the bills at breakfast."
"Just as long as one Bill keeps cooking it,"
she sweetly said, and I lit a cigar, the kind I
always have with my oatmeal.
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259
. HE PROMISED
LAN D
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Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be.
i_
~ When Browning wrote these lines, he
wasn't thinking of my mother and father or
anyone else in North Philadelphia; but
whenever I see my mother and father together,
I know they're residing in a state where I want
to live with Camille, a state of such blessed
mellowness that they make the Dalai Lama
seem like a Type A personality.
I will never forget my first awareness that my
mother and father had ascended to a
matrimonial plane where only God knew what
they were doingperhaps. We were driving to
Philadelphia from Atlantic City, with my father
at the wheel, my mother beside him, and me in
the back.
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263
BILL COSBY
"Oh, there's a car from Pittsburgh," said my
mother, looking at a license plate in the next
lane.
"How do you know it's from Pittsburgh?" said
my father.
"Because I couldn't think of Pennsylvania,"
she replied.
him.
"Of course I did," he replied, and then neither one
of them said another word about hat reduction. When
the time came to Ieave, my father picked up the
crushed hat and put it on his head, where it sat like
a piece of Pop Art. My mother glanced at it, as if to
make sure that it would not fall off, and then she
took his arm and they walked out the door, ready to
be the sweethearts of the Mummers Parade.
However, if I ever sat on my hat, Camille would
say, Can't you feel that you're sitting on your hat?
And I would reply, It's a tradition in my
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266
L O VE A ND MA R R I A G E
family for a man to sit on his hat. It's one of the
little things that my father did for my mother.
Yes, twenty-five years, happy as they have
been, are still not enough to have given Camille
and me that Ringling Brothers rhythm my
mother and father enjoy. But we can hear the
circus calling to us.
Love, what follies are committed in thy name,
said Francis Bacon.
So far, most of marriage has been the
Ziegfeld Follies for Camille and me. And now
we're getting ready to send in the clowns.
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267
If you enjoyed Bill Cosby's LOVE AND
MARRIAGE, you'll love TIME FLIES, an
uproarious collection of stories about growing
up and growing older by one of America's
eights?
But I would not give up.
Cosby and Custer.
The following year, when Ennis was sixteen
and I was forty-eight, I dragged him out to a
track that was made of cement, just like my
head. By this point, Ennis had stopped
muttering: he had simply tuned out the
pathetic exhortations of the aging jock who was
trying to recycle his varsity genes. I still was
trying to talk him into running a quarter mile
with me, but Ennis seemed more inclined to
taking a shot at a twentyfive-yard dash.
"Okay," I told him one day, "here's what
we're going to do now: we're going to run
seven-eighths speed; nice and relaxed."
"How far?" he replied.
"Oh . . . straight ahead a ways."
"But how far?"
"I'm afraid I can't say."
I couldn't say because I needed some
concession to my age. By not announcing the
distance of the race, I was making it possible
for myself to stop any time I wanted. I was also
making it impossible for Ennis to pace himself.
I am nothing if not a sportsman.
And so, we both took off. At the beginning
of the race, I was running at seveneighths of
my speed, but Ennis was just taking it easy
because his goal was not the finish line but the
avoidance of pain. My legs were churning, for
I knew that if Ennis decided to open up, he
would leave me like a train pulling out of a
station. Even while he ran at three-quarters
speed, his power was depressingly clear: his
three-quarters moved considerably better than
my seveneighths.
That was the day that Bill Casby invented
a new track and field event: the hundred-and-three-yard dash. It's a middle distance
race for me.
As Satchel Said, Don't Look
Back
One day while I was running on the UCLA
track, pretending that I was on my way to
winning still another decathlon, I saw a boy
from the college track team who was running
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